Search nets 3 suspects in Comerica Bank robbery

Press Photo/Dave RaczkowskiSearching: Grand Rapids police officers track a robbery suspect Wednesday after finding a car believed to have been used in the heist parked in the 600 block of Griggs Street SE.

GRAND RAPIDS -- One of three people in custody with suspected ties to a Wednesday bank robbery could be behind a series of Kent County heists, police said.

Authorities were holding a 28-year-old woman in the Kent County Jail on a bank robbery charge. Investigators from the sheriff's department, FBI, Kentwood and Grand Rapids were trying to link her to at least four other robberies between February and April.

She and a female accomplice were arrested shortly after a 10:30 a.m. robbery at a Plainfield Avenue NE Comerica Bank branch, police said.

A man who bailed out of a car the trio later abandoned at a Southeast Side home was picked up by police Wednesday night after a four-hour search at Griggs Street SE and Willard Avenue.

Authorities did not release the suspects' names.

Tellers gave sheriff's deputies a description of the 28-year-old who passed a note demanding cash and of a vehicle that left the area following the hold-up.

The suspects ran, and police caught the women. The man was arrested after a the search, with heavily armed officers looking in homes, garages, campers and other hiding places. Authorities also brought in a tracking dog.

Investigators said evidence found in the car tied it and the people to the bank robbery.

People who live near where the car was ditched watched as police tracked the suspects.

Mario Lopez, 35, held onto his pit bull puppy so as not to disrupt the search.

"I heard police yelling 'get down' so I came outside to see what was going on," he said.

Among the robberies police are trying to link the female suspect to are: